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Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

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and "Break up the narionalisric, racial groups by combitiiny<br />

[heir members for America." (16) It was thus well<br />

understood by the bourgeoisie that these European<br />

workers' consciousness of themselves as oppressed national<br />

minorities made them open to revolutionary ideas -<br />

and, on the other hand, their possible corruption into<br />

Amerikan citizens would make them more loyal to the<br />

U.S. Imperialism.<br />

The meeting formed the Inter-Racial Council, with<br />

corporate representatives and a tactical window-dressing<br />

of conservative, bourgeois "leaders" from the immigrant<br />

communities. T. Coleman DuPont became the chairman.<br />

Francis Keller, the well-known social worker and reformer<br />

became the paid coordinator of the Council's programs. It<br />

sounded just like so many of the establishment pacify-theghetto<br />

committees of the 1960s - only the "races" being<br />

"uplifted" were all European.<br />

The Council's main efforts were directed at propaganda.<br />

The American Association of Foreign Language<br />

Newspapers (in actuality a private company that placed<br />

Amerikan big business advertising in the many foreign<br />

language community newspapers) was purchased. With<br />

total control over the all-important major advertising, the<br />

Council began to dictate the political line of many of those<br />

newspapers. Anti-communist and anti-union articles were<br />

pushed.<br />

The Council also, in concert with government<br />

agencies and private capitalist charities, promoted<br />

Americanization "education" programs (i.e. political indoctrination):<br />

"adult education" night schools for immigrants,<br />

state laws requiring them to attend Americanization<br />

classes, laws prohibiting the use of any language except<br />

English in schools, etc., etc. The Americanization<br />

movement had a lasting effect on the Empire. The Inter-<br />

Racial Council was dropped by the capitalists in 1921,<br />

since by then Americanization had its own momentum.<br />

(17)<br />

At the same time, national chauvinism and the<br />

specific class interests of the Euro-Amerikan petitbourgeoisie<br />

and labor artistocracy led ro campaigns<br />

against the new immigrants. Sta,te licensing acts in New<br />

York, Connecticut, Michigan, Wyoming, Arizona and<br />

New Mexico barred non-citizen immigrants from competing<br />

with the settler professionals in medicine, pharmacy,<br />

architecture, engineering, and so on. (18) Under the<br />

banner of anti-Catholicism, various right-wing organizations<br />

attempted to mobilize the settler masses against the<br />

new immigrants. One such group, the Guardians of Liberty,<br />

was headed bv retired U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen.<br />

Nelson Miles (who had commanded the military respressions<br />

at both Wounded Knee and later in the invasion of<br />

Puerto Rico). The Loyal Legion, the Ku Klux Klan and<br />

other secret para-military groups were also heavily involved<br />

in attacks on immigrants, particularly when they<br />

became active in socialist organizations or went out on<br />

strikes. (19)<br />

Most significantly, the settler trade-unions<br />

themselves started picturing these new proletarians as the<br />

enemy. The unions of the American Federation of Labor<br />

(A.F.L.) were heavily imbued with the labor aristocracy<br />

viewpoint of the "native-born" settlers. This was true even<br />

though an earlier wave of German and Irish immigrants<br />

had played such a large role in founding those unions.<br />

Now they fought to bar the "Dago" and "Hunky" from<br />

the better-paid work, from union membership, and even<br />

from entering the U.S. In New York, the Bricklayers<br />

Union got Italians fired from public works projects.<br />

A.F.L. President Samuel Gompers united with right-wing<br />

U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in campaigning to extend<br />

the anti-Asian immigration bars to the "nonwhite"<br />

Eastern and Southern Europeans as well. (20)<br />

This process was very visible in the steel mills. It<br />

became socially unacceptable for "white" settlers to work<br />

with the Slavs and the Italians on the labor gangs. Increasingly<br />

they left the hard work to the European national<br />

minorities and either moved up to foreman, skilled positions<br />

- or out of the mills. The companies pushed the<br />

separation. Euro-Amerikans applying for ordinary labor<br />

jobs were told: "only Hunkies work on those jobs, they're<br />

too damn dirty and too damn hot for a 'white' man ... No<br />

white American works in steel-plant labor gang unless he'<br />

64 nuts or booze-fighter." A steel labor history tells us:

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